Saturday, March 24, 2012

stirrings

On Thursday I arrived in Vancouver, and now I'm on Bowen Island again.

Did I come back, or have I just gone away?

The chill in the air feels young and hostile, and my confused nose says it smells of Autumn. The Howe Sound wind that rocks the trees in the yard and clatters the windchimes has that howling turbulence that should be chasing dry leaves off the branches and pushing them up against the door. Even the ocean looks like October - harassed, whipped into pinched folds, the colour of temperatures that have just dropped. But in the quiet gaps between the gusts of wind, there is a sound that doesn't fit.
Songbirds. The single most heartening sound that I can name in this world!

In the Dominican, there were many beautiful bird calls - nameless birds with mysterious songs that I felt bereft to be leaving behind. But when I woke to the voices of chickadees and robins this morning, and realized that no tropical birdsong will ever rival the sounds of my tiny homeland friends... at least when measured by the depth of internal stirrings. These birds trigger feelings in me that touch a thousand memories of the relief of spring after winter. They remind me of things I can't remember, scenes without pictures, that are stored more in my body than my mind. How can it be, that a series of three familiar notes of inimitable tone can recall the sum of my life's happiest memories?

...

Sunday, March 4, 2012

visuals

Here is a little picture-book of a day in my life here.
(Let's say, a non-work day starting with breakfast out...)

The nearby Hotel Atlantis for breakfast.



(I tried to inconspicuously take a picture of the tables. Instead I got the spoon.)

And then, after enough coffee... heading down the beach towards the fish-shack restaurant. Stopping for swims along the way.

The hard part: very soft sand on a slope. Like walking lopsidedly through brown sugar.

An hour later: the reward.

Waves in front of the restaurant - to soak off the rum.

Walking back, re-entering the calm windless zone towards the end of the point, where the water calls again. (Resoaking the now nearly-dry bathing suit.)

Back home. Cool and quiet.

Afternoon diversions: writing music, writing lyrics, studying Spanish, reading British mysteries, and sometimes even sewing. (The pink thing is a little purse I sewed out of a bandana and clothes-line rope. I just needed something to carry some pesos and my kobo or journal in that I could tie around my waist for long beach walks! Please don't look closely at the stitches.)

Late afternoon: splashing in waves again (this time at the beach in front of our bungalows), while the sun gets lower in the sky.

Evening: eating dinner on the prickly grass out front, under the palms. (Sky usually darker by this point.)

...moon and stars follow...


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